Try to Breathe
by Ridley Poe Estoire
Summary: Faith is finally trying to atone for her heinous crimes. Hopefully, she'll succeed without fatally hurting someone or herself. Faith POV.


_I hurt myself today  
__To see if I still feel  
__I focus on the pain  
__The only thing that's real_

Angel, this knife I'm holding is all I know, all I've ever understood. The pressure of a blade breaking through a layer of tender flesh, whether calloused or flawless. When I'm holding this I feel superior somehow when I hold the upper hand, have your skin crawling with a sickening dread of having the curved blade jutting from your stomach. I want to cut you to pieces, staining my hands in blood where I can write a letter to her on these walls with my fingertips. In deep trickling crimson, it'd start with "Dear love..." striking up the thought of when we began as sort-of friends. Maybe that's exactly where we began and broke apart, streaming from that one source one of us headed downstream, suffocated by the current, the other fighting the swift pull breathing in her precious breaths of air where she hurt but stayed afloat. I wanted to float but I sank deeper than anyone's ever known into that cold, dark bottom where all the darkest creatures lie. They said I belonged with them, that they loved me more than I could ever know.

_The needle tears a hole  
The old familiar sting  
Try to kill it all away  
But I remember everything_

As I was drifting down the slow part of the current there were people who would reach out sticks to save me, some who reached them out to push me further into that swirling mass. The Mayor, he was the only one who reached out a lifesaver that caught. He said no one loved me like he loved me, called me his little firecracker like my mother used to call me. I believed he was the only one who didn't deal judgement out on me; maybe that was because he'd done more evil than the world could conceive. The truth is all I wanted was someone who needed me as much as I needed them. Someone who'd try, who'd die, for me.  
So please, don't ask me to give up the only thing I know. You say I have to learn what no one's here to teach me, but if you could just understand that I'm really not that brave. There's a pain rising in me, like a bowling ball in my stomach, and all it tells me is to run, run far enough that I'll finally escape the hurt I caused. Could you just make it stop, please, if only for a moment? I need my brain to slow down so I can think straight and remember to breathe through the next five seconds, next minute. You have this belief that I can be atoned, but honestly I have this theory that if you're told you're bad then that's all you can ever be. Maybe some people can see whom others will become down the road just by looking at them. Truthfully, I know you're one of those types but why didn't you save me from myself sooner?

_What have I become?  
My sweetest friend  
Everyone I know  
Goes away in the end_

I have these goosebumps all over my body, from a shiver that just shot down my spine. Was it the cold air breezing in or is that what it feels like to feel completely evil, like you want to vomit because of all the horrible destruction you laid out? You're talking to me, but I'm really only listening with half an ear. Touch and go. I hear you coaxing me to give you the knife, but I really want to cut your face, your arms, and thrust it into your heart. Break it from my grip please before I lose my cool. My hand's lifting and you're taking the only piece of me I know. Will I be able to break the bonds as easily as you reach over and severe them?

_You could have it all  
My empire of dirt  
I will let you down  
I will make you hurt_

It's not supposed to be easy, and I don't want it to, but can the screaming and the pain, the fighting and the drinking, just stop for awhile to free me for a moment I've never had. I used to live like a wild child because I didn't want to be contained and caged like the rest of the world, but I see that self-reservation is all that keeps us going, let's us know who we are and doesn't let anyone decide for us. Once, a long time before being Chosen, I swore to myself I'd never cry again, but right now that's all I want. For you to hold me, let me cry myself dry, and never let me go could release me for a few more seconds. I want to cut myself right now 'cause sometimes you need to bleed just to know you're alive. Tell me how to fix it, how to take it all back. Is there a spell to erase time? Can you build me a machine to ride the waves of time? I wish I could go back to that not-too-long-ago past and save myself from taking that wrong path on the fork in the road. I should've trusted the others' instincts and followed them down that narrow, unbeaten path rather than the smooth, easy one.

_I wear this crown of thorns  
Upon my liar's chair  
Full of broken thoughts  
I cannot repair_

You tell me I should be resting and all I can think is I've been asleep for 8 months; I'm not ready to waste a minute more. Every second I'm near you the more I want you to kill me, let me stream blood all over the floor. Tell me how this works, how someone who should've stayed evil eternal can change their destiny. I don't believe in fate or destiny, any of it really, but I do believe that their are choices you make and promises you break that lead you down different roads and, depending on who you are, you will end at either a dead end or a goal. Pull me from the depths that are threatening to pull me under once and for all and I'll let you save me. Don't be like everyone else and let me strangle and choke under the pressure and the violence. Save me from myself and maybe one day I'll wake up and feel a little more atoned to the crimes I so desperately want to vanish. Thank you for trying, thank you for being willing to die. I've never had that and I need that, more than anything, and it seems I need you to see all of me and lay out some long-past judgement that no one ever bothered to speak out loud. Save me and I'll prove you right to everyone. Especially _her_.

_Beneath the stain of time  
The feeling disappears  
You are someone else  
I am still right here_


End file.
